Make your own fortune –
I don’t want you to know the facts about who you are. I want you to know the truth about who you are. The facts are very different from the truth. The fact may be that you have $50 dollars in your account. But the truth may be that you have just started a new well paying job, and received financial advice to get yourself on the right path. Stay close to the truth. Today I would like to share some spiritual truths with you.
7 Spiritual Truths About You
1. You are an eternal, spiritual being.
2. You are heir to a rich estate of abundance and love.
3. You have been created to receive blessings. Spirit is the giver.
4. You have an unbreakable bond and connection to the Source of all-good.
5. You already have within you everything necessary to succeed in life.
6. You are the co-creator of your own life experience.
7. You are created to live well and be happy.
The Self Mastery Project is a three-month program currently in session. The three-month program has consisted of a one weekend intensive with Kristoffer Carter in Kansas City, a webinar, a weekend intensive with August Gold in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and three individual coaching sessions with Dr. Chris Michaels.
The program has been stuffed with insight and self-discovery.
This weekend during The Self Mastery Project webinar we talked about the power of beliefs. The funny thing is most of our beliefs have never been closely examined or scrutinized. Too many of our beliefs are rooted in fear, opinion or someone else’s experience.
I often think of the beliefs surrounding creative people. Society tells us all artists are starving. We are taught that if you can paint then you probably can’t do math. Our current culture tells us some writers start their morning with Scotch. Mainly we are informed that the passion of creative people is so intense that their life can never be stable.
They are all doomed to be troubled geniuses.
These beliefs have been polluting our creative culture for years. There are heaps of articles on the Internet about all the musicians that have died at twenty-seven: Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin – The list continues. But this dreadful inventory isn’t limited to musicians. There is the great French poet, Rene Vivian that died at thirty-two. According to my research, Vivian consumed by inspiration and lovers drank/starved herself to death. In her short life she published more than thirty volumes of prose under various names. Then there is the American photographer Francesca Woodman. Her work continues to be the subject of much critical acclaim, years after she committed suicide at the age of twenty-two.
The truth is: Not all imaginative minds are subject to early deaths, alcoholism, and fickleness. There are writers like Anne Lamott that have been sober for years. Lamott’s work speaks to audiences across the globe. Many of her books talk about her atheist upbringing and how she thought intelligent people couldn’t believe in God. There are also writers like Elizabeth Gilbert (The author of Eat, Pray, Love) who have researched how to live as a healthy creative.
Some of our beliefs may be based on truth, but many have been unconsciously accepted without consideration.
Don’t discount your intuition. But challenge your beliefs. You may be surprised with what you discover about yourself and the world around you.
Image of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo courtesy of Asheer Akram.
According to the Webster Dictionary – habit is an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.
We all have a lot of habits. Habits have a hand in constructing who we are.
As Virginia Woolf said in Mrs. Dalloway, “Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame.”
Technology, an integral part of our life, has become a habit. We check Facebook during lunchtime or when we are bored. Our phones, now navigators, search engines, cameras, and flashlights, have replaced conversations at the dinner table. When we wake up in the morning before we have even stepped out of bed we grab our phones to check our emails.
Don’t get me wrong. Technology is not bad.
Some parts of technology help us create healthy habits. Insight Timer, a meditation app, allows fellow meditators to see who is meditating worldwide!
Technology can also help people follow their dreams. Kickstarter, an online crowd- funding platform, has assisted filmmakers, artists, musicians, comics, journalists, and small start-ups all over the world bring their creative projects to life. $1,109,066,139 dollars have been pledged to Kickstarter Projects. Kickstarter launched in 2009.
With that being said, we have to remember:
Technology is not meant to consume our life. It is meant to enhance it.
As we go throughout our day, we have to be conscious of our habits.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
-Aristotle
Image credit: Anthony Baab, A Strenuous Nonbeing. Image courtesy of E.G. Schempf
What many of us wish for is a place or state of being where work, family, relationships, and hobbies all come together harmoniously. We want balance. To achieve balance we need discipline. And discipline can be hard yet essential.
But it is also important to remember that life and our journey can be fun. It is not meant to be a to do list. Life isn’t supposed to be a daily grind. We can approach challenges with curiosity. Stress does not equal productivity.
We can’t forget: Our time on this Earth is limited. So love today.
If you don’t love the paint in your living room change it. If you are in a tense work environment bring photos of your loved ones. If you have clothes in your closet you have not worn for two years donate them. If you don’t like running as your exercise try yoga.
We are in control of creating a loving environment for ourselves. No one will do this for us.
There is no shortage of love. And life is too short to live without it.
Experts tell us that geology or hydrology of some areas attract more storms than others. The city of Bogor in Java holds the world record- 322 days of thunder a year. A few years ago, Tampa, Florida had the highest average of thunder in the United States at 94. These places are known as lightning nests.
Thunderstorms are a lot like relationships. They are powerful, electric, and sometimes destructive.
People in your life at one point or another will hurt you, unintentionally or intentionally. But suffering doesn’t purify your soul or make you stronger or wiser. Carrying around anger only diminishes your spirit.
If you are ready to forgive here are seven questions to ask yourself :
You never really can move on until you forgive and take full responsibility for the quality of your own life. Forgiveness must happen at your own pace. But remember it is important to be more committed to building a future instead of surviving a past.
Photo by Robin Lorenson. To view more of her work visit http://www.robinlorensonphoto.com/index2.php#/home/
The search for candidates for the Self Mastery Project started in March. We were looking for people who were ready to fully engage in their life – not just endure it.
We found our tribe full of brave souls, and the first weekend in April the program was launched with speaker, Kristoffer Carter. Kris is a meditation guru, musician, yogi, and father.
He spoke a lot about the importance of meditation and mindfulness. We as a culture have too many inputs. We have the Internet, family, jobs, TV, iPhones, and iPads. We are all bouncing from task to task. We are in the middle of answering an email and then we think, “ I should pay my water bill,” or we get on Facebook find an article and get lost clicking through a website of content. Some days, we are filling our brain full of information junk food.
We use Facebook or the online world as a break. But our brains and souls really need a pause.
The problem is when people are busy, and we all are in some way or another, the first thing that we stop doing is our exercise or our meditation practice. What we forget is that by taking 20 minutes for ourselves we become more productive.
If you have a really busy week then you need your meditation practice even more.
Your mind is your greatest asset, and how you use it determines the quality of your life.
To read more about Kristoffer Carter visit http://www.thisepiclife.com.
Routines are not all bad. Regular study routines can help us learn a foreign language like French. Doing yoga consistently builds flexibility in our body and helps our mind unscramble the constant stream of information it ingests.
But, routines can also bind us to a false sense of safety.
If you’re like me, you probably don’t like to have your schedule changed or plans disrupted. We are truly creatures of habit. I have a friend who eats the same thing for breakfast every day: oatmeal. I know a woman who’s worn the same perfume for twenty years. I don’t know what she’ll do if they stop making it. I drive the same route to work each day. We like our routines and habits. They give us the illusion of control.
Just because you have had that job for twenty-five years does not mean you are meant to carry on doing it. Maybe you don’t feel the sense of purpose you once felt within your profession. Or maybe, when you least expect it, you lose your secure job because your company is “moving in another direction.”
Routines, comforts, and conveniences are not everything. In fact sometimes they keep us from participating in the small spontaneous adventures.
Sometimes going through the motions of routine we miss life.
A team of researchers announced last week that they had detected ripples from gravitational waves – the first evidence of cosmic inflation. Without being too technical, the discovery of gravitational waves from the big bang could offer scientists their first glimpse of how the universe was born.
Several of the world’s mystics have pointed to the two most common paths to God: The path of wisdom and the path of love.
I think we forget that these paths often cross.
Existence of science does not banish a higher power. And a higher power does not eliminate science. Both groups of people are looking for answers to understand their world and what lies beyond it.
There is no wrong path or futile effort when it comes to your spiritual journey. Every man who seeks will find. Every woman who knocks will have the door opened to her.
The spirit we go in search of wants to be found.
Andre Linde, a physics professor at Stanford University, is “the founding father of cosmic inflation.” Online there is a video of a researcher telling him his theory has been proved. He looks shocked; His eyes well with tears. Thirty years of his life’s work has come to a conclusion, a conclusion he thought he would never see.
Despite the rapid pace of technology there is still simply a lot we don’t know. With that being said, I am always in awe of those who dedicate their career to ideas that might never be tangible in their lifetime.
Even though they may never “find” the evidence to prove their life’s work, they never stop searching.
That is admirable.
The blog photo today again is by photographer and storm chaser Robin Lorenson. To view her work visit: http://www.robinlorensonphoto.com
The Self-Mastery Project and my book, The Power of You, have really got me thinking about how people can reach beyond making a living and build meaningful lives.
I thought sharing mine with you might get you thinking about what you believe and need out of your life. Dig deep!
The Power of You Manifesto
by Dr. Chris Michaels
I believe in you. I believe in the power that resides within you. I believe that power is the presence of the one life of Spirit, the Creator of the universe. I believe you have been created as a unique and purposeful being with a soul assignment to complete.
I believe the spiritual journey you are on is right for you, and the challenges you face have been specifically chosen to bring you closer to Love. I believe you are a sacred and holy being, and should be treated as such.
I believe the time has come for you to awaken to the power that lies dormant within you.
I believe this is your moment in history and your true task is to leave the world better than you found it. I believe it’s time to set fear aside and face your destiny.
The key to a more successful life isn’t to do better, it’s to know better.
--- Chris Michaels ---
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